Somewhere along the path to becoming a respiratory therapist, I decided I wanted to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a doctor. So now, I am a wife, mother, RT, and full-time pre-med senior. My life gets crazy. Blogging about it helps me to keep my sanity. Oh, and these are my words unless otherwise noted. Don't sue me.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

My Pumpkin at the Pumpkin Patch

I got the lovely experience of being UberMom with Evan this week as we made the pilgrimage to Vogt Farm in Batesville, Indiana this past week with his Cub Scout Pack. We knew well in advance that we were going, but being that I have a career, I tend to forget the details unless they are staring me in the face. So after Evan left for school that day, I pulled out the event flyer to take a look. " Bring One Dozen Cookies, Please." D'Oh! These people apparently did not get the memo that I do not bake. I can cook, but I do not bake. It has been my Achilles' heel as a mother, one that brought tears as an expectant mother. I had made a chocolate cake, and I wanted to ice it. But I made it way too large, and the cake saver doodad would not fit over the top of the thing. The top layer tried to slide off and had to be rescued, and each time someone took a piece, the sides of the cake scraped against the sides of the container. It was not pretty and John referred to it as "Chocolate Ugly Cake". It tasted good, though. But I, in all of my pregnant glory, shed tears over this. I could just see my soon-to-be-born child taking cupcakes to school which noone would dare eat.

So here I am now. I still cannot bake, but they want cookies. John says, "Andrea, just go buy a bag of Oreos or something." No way. I am now playing the role of CubScout Mother. Oreos do not fit the bill. So I head to the grocery store to get the needed ingredients. (I guess I am a bad mother in that I do not keep the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies in my cabinets at any given moment where I am struck into a baking frenzy.) So I decide on frosted sugar cookies, and I get the goods, including those little pumpkins that taste like candy corn.

So I stand here in my kitchen, and I individually decorate not the requisite one dozen, but two. And they are cute and pumpkin patch-ish with little sprinkels and pumpkins. And when we get there, all of the other Moms tell me they are adorable. As they are hauling out their bags of Oreos and Chips-Ahoy!

Then we get to the festivities at hand, and Evan has a ball getting messy and into things. He pets animals, rides a pony, and he and his Pack Leader completely lose me, City Girl Supreme, in a corn maze. That picture up there is them running away from me. I kept hearing that eery Children of the Corn music in my head as I wandered through it. But at least Evan knows his Mom is a good sport. Then I discovered that one of the leaders just happens to be a guy I dated in high school. Lovely.

Words to Live By...

"If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; play is y; and z is keeping your mouth shut."--Albert Einstein"Nothing exists but atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion."-------Demokritos" To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived...This is to have succeeded."--Ralph Waldo Emerson "History, despite it's wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again."----Maya Angelou"Two roads diverged in a wood and I--I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all of the difference."--Robert Frost"A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive. Having been alive, it won't be so hard in the end to lie down and rest."--Pearl Bailey

The Hippocratic Oath

I do solemnly swear, by whatever I hold most sacred, that I will be loyal to the Profession of Medicine and just and generous to its members.

That I will exercise the art of medicine solely for the cure of my patients, and will give no drug, perform no operation for a criminal purpose, even if solicited, far less suggest it; in like manner I will not give to a woman any kind of strange material to produce abortion, and I will maintain respect for human life from the moment of its conception.

That whatsoever I shall see or hear of the lives of men or women which is not fitting to be spoken, I will inviolably secret.

I will not carry out moral judgment of any patient, but will deal with its diseases to the maximum of my capacity without concerning the circumstances.

Knowing my own limitations and those of medicine in general, I will make an effort to cure when possible and always comfort.

I will only request studies if I believe that they have reasonable probability to produce better results for my patients, and I will not carry out studies neither procedures nor surgery only for monetary gain. I will freely refer my patients to other doctors if I am convinced that they are more enabled than I to treat a certain problem.

I will care for my patients and their families as I would have them care for me and my family. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and /or corruption; and, further from the seduction of females or males.

I will not experiment with patients unless they grant its consent after informing them truthfully, and I will continue being a student all my professional life.

I will try to work like an expert for all my patients to be able to take care of them more indeed and to be able to apply the lessons that they provide to me in the care of other patients.

I will offer care to all the patients who ask for it. No matter the sex, race, color, creed or economic status. I will voluntarily offer part of my time for the care of the poor and the underserved ones.

While I continue to keep this oath inviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy the practice of the art of medicine, respected by all men, at all times! But should I trespass or violate this oath, that God and society demand these violations against me.